Milestones

We have experienced a milestone in our household today. My oldest son picked out his first pair of glasses. I have very mixed emotions about this and it feels like it would help to put them here. So, join me or not, here is the story.....

Last week during our first week of school, Michael complained often about his eyes either bothering him or watering. Then I noticed a couple red flags as he read and did his math work. The upside to having a mom with vision problems is that she is always on the look-out for the same problem in her children. That is also the downside. :) However, I felt I would be remiss not to make an appointment with the eye doctor to find out if my concerns were valid.

The Doctor was SO great! He spoke directly to Michael and put him at ease. Michael did a great job communicating with the doctor--he is getting so big! My once shy, hide-behind-mommy son is growing up! As I watched the appointment progress, I grew very concerned because he was missing what seemed to be very large letters. But I didn't say a word. At the end, the Dr. turned to me and said, "Now, Mom, there are a few things you need to know. The letters you are watching are twice as big as the ones Michael was looking at. (WHEW!) And children don't see detail like we do, so when he called a G an O, that was fine. They also would rather not answer than get it wrong, so when he couldn't tell me the letter, it was no problem." (WHEW again!)

After dilating his eyes (the only thing Michael needed to be talked into being cooperative about), and finishing the exam, the Dr. announced Michael needs reading glasses. Now, yesterday while we were doing Math, he couldn't see something very well and I decided I needed to prepare him for the possibility of needing glasses. He was very upset about this and kept saying he would look funny. I reminded him that his friends Taylor and Samantha don't look funny and that he doesn't think I look funny......or any number of other people he knows who wear glasses. I also reminded him that when I switched from contacts to glasses, he thought I looked funny at first, but he doesn't think so anymore. So, we talked about how it might take a little while to get used to--IF glasses were what he needed. We were very patient with him while he worked this out in his head and by bedtime, he had decided he might look kind of good in glasses.

We decided to head to Lens Crafters to choose frames (the Dr's office had very expensive frames and not a great selection). By now he was pretty excited. We walked into Lens Crafters and he tried on one pair and decided those were the ones he wanted. He tried on a couple more, but was able to tell the worker exactly why he liked the first pair the best and those are the ones we got. Thankfully, they would be ready in an hour, so we had lunch at the mall and went back to pick them up. Again, he did a great job of communicating with the woman adjusting his glasses. He told her exactly where it felt funny or what was wrong.

He is now working on Legos in his room with his new glasses on that he is very excited about. Praise the Lord! I prayed so hard that he would get to this point, but I'm not sure I believed it would happen so quickly.

I think even more than the glasses, the milestone is that he spoke so clearly and confidently to the adults we saw today. I have no doubt that in our case, this is largely due to homeschooling. This is not true for everyone, but I really feel like in Michael's case it is. I don't feel he would have gained this much confidence this quickly if we had made another choice.

Who knows what has me so choked up today?! Probably the mix of everything. In any case, he looks very handsome.....and he would want me to tell you--very smart--in those glasses. My little boy isn't really so little anymore! And I'm SO proud of him!!